


Stockholm Syndrome by Das Tier

by GO_Library_archivist



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Action/Adventure, M/M, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-28
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GO_Library_archivist/pseuds/GO_Library_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This time, Apocalypse isn’t cancelled, and everybody must play his role - or find a way out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from [Quantum_Witch](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Quantum_Witch/profile): this story was originally archived at [The Good Omens Library](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Good_Omens_Library), which I maintained for eight years until I closed it due to lack of funds and decreased usership. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing the GOL's stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in July 2013. I e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Good Omens Library collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/TheGoodOmensLibrary/profile), or through the [GO_Library_archivist](http://archiveofourown.org/users/GO_Library_archivist/profile) account.

Stockholm Syndrome by [Das Tier](viewuser.php?uid=60)

Summary: This time, Apocalypse isn’t cancelled, and everybody must play his role - or find a way out of it.  
Categories: Slash Fanfic Characters:  Aziraphale  
Genres:  Action/Adventure  
Warnings:  Violence (mild)  
Chapters:  3 Completed: Yes  
Word count: 8585 Read: 820  
Published: 28 Jul 2006 Updated: 28 Jul 2006

 

* * *

 

 

An event postponed isn’t an event cancelled. Shifting it farther future-wards on the timeline doesn’t mean abolishing the imminence of the thing to come, and The Antichrist is easily made into An Antichrist with as much as a twitch of the diabolical genitalia.

Those were the lines Crowley’s thoughts ran along, minus high-flown abstractness and plus some personal obscenities thrown in for good measure. Obscenities, in a way, sweetened the pill; not in too long a way, though.

He was sitting in his London flat with the firm intention to sit through the Apocalypse. Apocalypses, he mused, were becoming a regular occasion in his routine. As with rain, snow and other natural annoyances, the wisest thing was to sit [sleep, pace across the room] it out. He was lucky to be left out in all the evil infant fun, which was good, and dismally anticipated to be yet called on stage before the final curtain fell, which was bad. Together, both facts worked as a sort of counterbalance.

He was perched on the axis of this treacherous equilibrium when the TV screen came alive. It had been blank ever since the broadcast network went down, and now the screen was of that special colour that you get tuning to a dead channel. Like all the times this definition was used before, this didn’t bode well.

CROWLEY, began the voice of the dead channel with the same originality it had exhibited throughout the millennia. I HAVE A MESSAGE FOR YOU. ARE YOU THERE?

“Yes, Master,” he said, since it was pointless to deny the obvious. The eye had always been upon him, and now it was ready to blink.

WE’VE BEEN ADVANCING, CROWLEY.

“Good for us,” he muttered, although not too loud.

IT IS TIME TO RIGHT YOUR WRONGS. WE GIVE YOU A SECOND CHANCE. ARE YOU GLAD?

“Overjoyed, my lord,” Crowley murmured, and the screen showed him its satisfaction with a particularly chaotic ripple of gray noise. “Any more odd babies to replace?”

NOT THIS TIME. IT HAS BEGUN. THUS WE PROCLAIM YOU A BLOODHOUND OF OUR LEGIONS. AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH HIM, AS THEY SAY. DO YOU FEEL HONOURED?

“Yes, lord,” said Crowley as it was the only answer expected from him.

THEN GO AND PLACE OUR MARK ONTO THEM. HARVEST WELL, CROWLEY, AND THE NUMBER YOU REAP WILL BE YOUR CHANCE OF REDEMPTION.

The channel switched off abruptly, in style with the usual no-nonsense, straight-in-your-face messaging of the Powers That Be, which had had enough of exegesis and would leave no unnecessary wordy material for expositors to chew on.

Crowley never liked it, even when appreciating the laconic inevitability of the phrasing at certain times. Each of such transmissions usually yanked him out of control over things and, which was more important, over himself, reminding once again that he was nothing but branded property destined to obey, a tool, and extension of a body that was greater than him on quite a disparate scale. The illusion of free will was particularly bitter to part with.

He knew the prophecies of course, and had no doubts in labelling the time he was stuck in. The End of Everything was to be preceded by a reign of misrule and falsification triumphantly led by the Antichrist. While the Scriptures called it ‘a little season’ it was never made clear how little it would be in fact translated into human measure; it could be years, centuries, or millennia, and it meant a hell of a lot of work to do. Literally.

“Hallo, serpent,” said another, this time perfectly materialized voice that was coming from Hastur’s lips. He was tall, and he was good at lurking as ever, and he presented himself out of the shadows in a dark corner with too much ease to leave the flat’s owner unperturbed. “Got the news from Abaddon?”

“The latest.” Crowley gave him a side-long glance. “Whatever fashion are you wearing?”

Hastur, Him Who Is Not To Be Named, The King in Yellow, or simply Kaiwan [1] among friends, seemed to have gone a long way not only from his origin as shepherds’ companion but also from his latest position of a Duke of Hell. Contrary to his usual antiquated attire that hadn’t been renewed since the time he got pinned down to his last button in medieval grimoires, this time he was clad in something that, while similarly antique, had a grand air of battles fought and won. His apparel looked like armour, felt like armour, and smelt, much to Crowley’s dismay, like armour – just fresh out of a skirmish.

“We’ve been given a license to kill, serpent.”

“So I’ve heard,” agreed Crowley tentatively, watching the tall figure of the Duke approach. The stench of blood grew stronger with each of his steps.

“Shielding yourself off, aren’t you?” Hastur gestured towards the windows, which had been shaded ever since it had begun to rain, which Crowley hated, and rain in liquids so meteorologically incorrect that Crowley was driven beyond hate. “You’ve been wasting your time. It’s fun out there – there are souls to take, and take we shall, as long as we’re allowed to. Which isn’t eternity, Crowley. Don yourself.”

“Into what?”

“Have you forgotten?”

In a blink Hastur was by his side, huge, menacing and competent in things it’d be unsafe to know. His eyes glowed malignantly just inches from Crowley’s face.

“You’ve grown soft,” he drawled contemptuously. “I can’t believe you’ve really been appointed to direct us. Now…”

He plunged his fingers into Crowley’s hair pulling him up, then eyed him from head to toe, taking in every detail of his battered appearance before giving his verdict.

“Leather can stay. Change the rest, unless you want me to remind you…”

Crowley didn’t want anything of the kind. And he remembered, although painfully, how it all fitted together once, the pieces of armour fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow [2], the metal etched with signs uncanny and made dim with rusty blood and acid brimstone - the vestiges of evil glory. It enveloped him easily, as if he had never really stripped out of it.

“Now, that’s much better. You finally look like one of us,” approved Hastur, who never understood Crowley’s penchant to be en vogue. “I’ll be around, just in case. As an advisor.”

“You mean, a supervisor?” ventured Crowley, aware of Hastur’s grip on his scalp.

“As your advisor,” murmured Hastur emphatically. “You’re our pointer, and my gang will go the rest.”

 

***

And so they were back in the street, under the never-ceasing rain of blood and fire. The lower demons, the rank and file of Hell, were wielding weapons the obsolete looks of which didn’t belie their lethal strength. Their whips could crush stone, their swords could cut iron like butter; the halberd that was poised in Hastur’s grip, ready to swing a fatal blow, could smash bone and steel alike. They were hungry, and they were ready to begin their hunt.

“You can sense them, can’t you?” Hastur chanted, intimately close to Crowley’s ear. “You’re almost native here; you should smell them, the yet unmarked souls. Lead us, snake-hound.”

Crowley looked around, outside of his apartment for the first time in months. He hadn’t been out ever since it started and only listened to the deafening sounds of houses crumbling and people shrieking, but never dared a glance out of his window. Now the air was pungent and rich, smarting the senses he had forgotten he had. Hastur was right: he could smell it, the fear of the forsaken ones, those who had dawdled for too long, who had lingered in their indecision, and now their fear and loneliness sang to him. They were potential recruits of Hell, and he was the head of the press-gang.

“Lead us, snake.”

 

***

He kept telling himself those souls belonged to people he didn’t know and there was nothing personal in it. He couldn’t be held responsible for every weak being that didn’t have the resolve to take sides while there was still a chance. He hadn’t been keeping track of omens already manifested but was sure that those who were to be saved would be saved in the end, no matter what.

His breastplate had become smeared with gore, clots stuck into the wriggly etching that embodied his ancient name. His hands would have been bloodied too, if not for the leather gloves he wore. Hastur had been laughing at him ever since they set out, even more so when he refused the proffered reaper weapons. His forte had always been incitement and propagation, not the crude violence of Hastur’s kind.

He stopped at a crossroads and looked from side to side, senses alarmed. There were two calls, one coming from a church, the other from an orphanage. The orphanage was closer but the church emitted a much more urgent smell of desperation that was coming from more mature and valuable souls. Around him the lesser devils, tanned almost black by the hellish fires, lashed their whips in impatience.

“Which way, serpent?” Hastur spat out the words together with a knuckle he had been gnawing ever since they finished a ‘revision’ of a hospital.

Crowley frowned. His primordial nature, which had been driving him through the city, now felt confused by more recent memories. After one particular occasion he had developed abhorrence of infants, babies, and children, not matter how tasty their souls might be. The orphanage, despite its accessibility, didn’t appeal to him personally, while the church, on the opposite, brought forth the painful memories of all the Christmases he had spent alone.

“The church,” he directed, and the imps rushed forth with a yell of mad glee.

 

***

They had raided several churches before, but this one was different. There was a particular air around it, and it reminded him of a certain presence that he had somehow come to value and even cherish. It linked in his mind with an image of someone he had been trying to ban from his memories since the beginning of the End – the time he expected that presence to appear like it had done before on a similar occasion. But this time it did not, and he felt abandoned and refused to go out partly for this very reason. During this Apocalypse, Aziraphale chose to mind his own business; all the better for him.

Crowley rushed up the stairs to the temple before Hastur could spur him on with his usual sarcastic remark and gave the door an angry push.

Inside it was cool and dim, as befitted a good church. Incense-laden air tasted too sweet, the candles were too upright, and the place on the whole had too much reverence to do anything good to his insulted nerves. He paused in the main aisle, while Hastur stomped in, careful to navigate a safe way around the basin with the holy water.

“Where are they?” he asked in a subdued whisper: the church had been functioning for too long to lose its spirit even with Apocalypse in full swing. He looked up at the lanky figure of his scout with a kind of uncertainty that he hated to feel.

Crowley didn’t answer. The nave in front of him was dark, and the shape of the rod suspended far above was hardly discernable. Across the transept and beyond the altar shadows hid the details. He took off his sunglasses [another source of Hastur’s endless amusement] and peered into the dusk. Behind him the gang of devils whimpered anxiously.

“The undercroft,” he replied finally to Hastur’s question, and the imps rushed forth, flooding the pews and lashing their whips at anything that happened to be in their way. The Duke slapped him on the back by means of approval and took a firmer grip on his halberd.

The devil soldiers didn’t bother looking for doors or stairs and simply ploughed up the stone floor with quick whip blows. Crowley cringed at the violent sound of thrashing and clouds of dust it was raising. It was probably because of dust that he didn’t notice the movement behind the altar at first.

“Looks like we have a guardian in this place,” Hastur slurred lazily. “Ten times more points for netting a guardian angel. You need bonus score, snake.”

Crowley wasn’t paying attention to the Duke’s wit as he started to walk towards the chancel. The light coming through the stained glass windows cast a reddish hue everywhere but did little to hide the wide span of wings that were pristinely white. The feathers rustled softly as the angel moved, and that it was an angel there was now no doubt. An angry, ass-kicking vengeance-monger of desperate protectiveness, and any such creature coming a demon’s way was no good news for a demon.

“You have your flaming sword back,” stated Crowley matter-of-factly. “Did you retrieve it from the human progeny, or did they restock you after all?”

He shielded his eyes against the flame, missing his sunglasses. Behind him Hastur yelped in sudden excitement.

“Oh my, a reunion? Here,” he grabbed the shoulder of the nearest imp, yanked a scimitar out of his hand and tossed the curved, dark blade to Crowley. “Have fun, serpent.”

The angel’s wings rustled again as Aziraphale sighed sadly.

“Is it absolutely necessary, Crowley? You could just walk out…”

“And find another church? The one that isn’t favoured by your attention?” Crowley stared at the blade in his hand in mesmerized wonder. The abovementioned flaming sword sat in the angel’s grip with far more ease and quite a sudden expertise. “So that’s where you’ve been. I was wondering wherever you went; lost track of you somewhat, you know. This is where.”

“You shall not pass.”

“Was even worried, a bit though, but still. Thought you might have gotten yourself into something foolish. ‘M right about that, it seems. Foolish enough.”

“You shall not pass, Nahash [3].”

Crowley finally looked up at the angel, who seemed stern and detached and nothing similar to the Aziraphale he knew.

“Wrong movie,” he hissed, and then charged.

Aziraphale parried the blow, and then another one, and then thrust his own sword into a well-calculated, almost canonical attack. The demon dodged it, and the blade missed his head by a mere inch, making his hair raise. This was serious after all.

“What about the Arrangement then?” Crowley ventured between deflecting a blow and delivering his own lunge, frantically trying to revive whatever his memory still held about ‘Capo Ferro’ [4], which wasn’t much. “What about laissez-faire and all that – it doesn’t hold any more?”

“Nothing personal,” panted Aziraphale, who was running out of breath trying to outmaneuver his more agile opponent. “It’s about those people down there, not about you and me.”

“Oh, as if those could be just *any* people? Don’t bullshit me telling that you care about everyone in equal measure. You’re being territorial, Aziraphale.” He crossed the distance between him and the angel, as if striving for a narrow measure, but instead of lunging with his blade uppercut the opponent with his free arm. “This IS personal.”

Aziraphale fell backwards on the altar, sending the chalices, candles and assorted communion equipment flying all over the floor. A flap of wings softened his fall, and soon he was on his feet again.

“Why couldn’t you just wait till our time is done?” Crowley grabbed the nearest surviving pew for support and drew in a huge gulp of air trying to steady himself. “It’s not for that long. You should have only waited.”

Beyond them, Hastur’s subordinates were swarming the place, driving the people who had taken shelter in the church’s basement out into the nave and hoarding them into one shrieking, panicked crowd. The Duke looked smug beyond decency.

“Need help?” he offered good-naturedly.

“He’s mine,” Crowley snapped back, watching Aziraphale suddenly soar above only to zoom down in on him in a moment. Hastur made a mock salute with his halberd and left exactly at the moment Crowley remembered he had wings too.

They hovered in the narrow vaulted space just under the ceiling, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Aziraphale looked unusually deadly.

“So, you mean it? To kill me?” asked Crowley softly, balancing the scimitar in his hand.

“You’d kill me now, wouldn’t you, if I gave you a chance?”

Crowley didn’t bother to reply. A sort of a vague plan was forming in his mind. Aziraphale, despite his fighting vigour, obviously was out of shape. He couldn’t be well-trained, he was overweight, less supple, and stuck in an older body. It might work.

Crowley let his scimitar drop to the ground, beat his wings to gain momentum and then hurled himself against the angel. The impact carried them both down on a diagonal across the transept and farther off, into the sacristy, and then onwards, until they both hit the rear wall. The crash left them lost in a cloud of splinters that used to be the sacristy door, and fragments of shattered stone.

Aziraphale came down in a heap of torn feathers and battered tweed while Crowley struggled to stand up, his human body nearly asphyxiated with the effort. The angel’s head tilted towards his shoulder lifelessly, leaving a trace of blood on the wall. He was unconscious, but it wouldn’t be for long.

“No, I wouldn’t”, said Crowley as a belated answer to the angel’s question, then stooped, estimated the situation and punched Aziraphale in the face.

After that he looked around, scanning the room until he spotted somebody’s cloak, dark and inconspicuous enough. He wrapped the angel into it, cursed at the sight, bent down to haul the limp body over his shoulder, cursed again and felt a sharp pang of self-pity. Aziraphale was definitely overweight.

He staggered along the aisle, more grim and sour with each step, and it was yet a long way home. Then he remembered he’d have to find a means to get them both up the stairs, and cursed some more.

One problem at a time; that seemed the safest pace for now.

 

***

Notes:

[1] See A. Bierce and The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana.  
[2] Revelation 9:16  
[3] The Hebrew name of the Serpent of Eden.  
[4] Capo Ferro – the old treatise on the art of fencing.

 

* * *

  
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://library.good-omens.net/viewstory.php?sid=259>


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, Apocalypse isn’t cancelled, and everybody must play his role - or find a way out of it.

  
[Stockholm Syndrome](viewstory.php?sid=259) by [Das Tier](viewuser.php?uid=60)  


  
Summary: This time, Apocalypse isn’t cancelled, and everybody must play his role - or find a way out of it.  
Categories: [Slash Fanfic](browse.php?type=categories&catid=3) Characters:  Aziraphale  
Genres:  Action/Adventure  
Warnings:  Violence (mild)  
Challenges:  
Series: None  
Chapters:  3 Completed: Yes   
Word count: 8585 Read: 820  
Published: 28 Jul 2006 Updated: 28 Jul 2006 

Solitary confinement by Das Tier

Solitary confinement

 

Aziraphale came round to the accompaniment of a throbbing headache that made his head feel like a bell that had tolled for too long. The pain, and a particularly blurred vision, indicated some large traumatic event had occurred.

He wished himself rid of the headache, for starters, and found that he couldn’t do that.

He was lying on a bed in a room lit with nothing but a dim, reddish glow that was, weirdly enough, coming from the walls. He strived to bring the details into focus and was finally able to discern the glow-emitting shapes. Those were of various geometrical designs with pentagrams dominating, all filled with letters and symbols, the fateful meaning of which was to render every angel gentle, peaceable, and obeying. The symbols were drawn in red marker.

“Bastard,” muttered Aziraphale and didn’t even scold himself for saying a bad word.

Stripped of his divine powers, he had to get up still suffering from migraine and wobble precariously across the room. On the other side of the door two voices droned in a conversation; one voice was definitely Crowley’s, the other remained unidentifiable. The low unfamiliar growl must have said something funny because Crowley laughed. The angel squatted by the door and pressed his ear to it for better audibility. Perhaps it wasn’t a joke after all: as far as he knew Crowley’s laughter, which was an infrequent phenomenon, this time it had nothing even vaguely resembling merriment. More like sarcasm, and derision, and somewhere deep, underneath it all, carefully concealed fear.

The growl continued in the same manner, not in the least baffled and with assertiveness bordering on impudence, until the voices drifted off, and there was a sound of a door being closed in the distance, and then, the bedroom door was opened with a tricky quickness.

Aziraphale tumbled forth into the world and would have hit his nose against Crowley’s knees but managed to put out a supportive hand that prevented the nosedive. Close up, he could see that the leather that hugged tight the demon’s legs was no longer black but of a sickly rusty colour, with dry blood soaked into every pore so that the material was beyond redemption.

“Hi, Aziraphale,” said Crowley as if they had just met to have dinner together. “I’ve run into a pack of journalists on my way here, can you imagine? Some underground station or other, they usually call it resistance. Wanted to know how we’re doing. Well, if they think this Apocalypse can be televised, they’ll have to hire their cast elsewhere.”

Aziraphale, frozen doggy-style by perplexity and a sudden twinge of pain in his backbone, inhaled deeply, which he immediately regretted.

“You stink,” he observed, not sure if he meant it literally, figuratively, or both.

“Undeniably so.” Crowley bent down and looked the angel in the face assessing the damage. “Can’t say that you look well, my dear.”

“And who’s to blame for that, eh?”

“Oh, come on.” He offered the angel a hand to help him stand up. “I saved your life. You might at least say thank you.”

“I will, if you let me go where I should be. What’s all this…” Aziraphale bit his tongue before it produced any other bad word, “ this…d?cor about?”

“It’s your protection. Took me a while to remember how to draw them.”

“If you expect me to appreciate your artistic skill, you’re wasting your – and my – time. You have no right to keep me here, neither from the moral viewpoint nor from the viewpoint of our…” Aziraphale stammered over a word again, “friendship.”

Crowley turned away, a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Won’t”, he snapped, and then added bitterly, despite himself: “Can’t.”

***

Aziraphale then slammed the bedroom door shut right before his captor, and it promptly escaped his notice that while he was confined to that room by potent seals on the walls, the said captor could still come and go as he pleased, so shutting doors in his face or acting out any other household drama had very little real point. He spent the next hour anticipating Crowley to storm [march, sneak, filter] in any moment, but the demon had retreated into some dark recess of a place elsewhere in the flat and showed no intention of violating the bedroom.

He emerged, by Aziraphale’s estimation, a day later, introducing himself with a polite knock.

“I told them I discorporated you,” he said calmly, as if there had been no outbursts and they were just picking up the conversation where they left it last time. “You know, Hastur was getting curious about how it all turned out between us.”

“Hastur?” wondered Aziraphale, giving the demon a supercilious look from his regally reclined position on the bed. “The growling person that makes bad jokes?”

“Bad jokes, yes,” Crowley thought about it for a moment. “You still want to leave?”

“Yes,” admitted Aziraphale curtly.

“Look, angel,” Crowley finally stepped inside the bedroom and tuned his voice to express the best kind of patience and conviction. “You don’t have to be out there. It’s all rather pointless, you know…”

“The defeat of the legions of Hell was written down in the holy Scriptures, yes.”

“Exactly. You just wait until the day I don’t come back, and that’ll be a sign it’s time to you to reappear on the stage.”

“You know what, Crowley, it’s revenge, right?” he asseverated, heedless of the argument offered to him. “Because I didn’t warn you beforehand, because I wasn’t around when it all began, or something of that kind. Whatever it is, it’s awfully childish and dangerous of you to do.”

Crowley pondered the accusation in silence, then turned on his heels and walked out. The angel half expected him to slam the door in yesterday’s manner, but his prisoner apparently had too much self-control – or too little strength left after one of his iniquitous raids – to waste his time on such trifles.

***

It was day, or the closest it could come to daytime in the present state of mangled weather and natural monstrosities. Besides, the glass in the bedroom window had been shaded, and that made the light outside even more ambiguous.

Aziraphale was making his now habitual morning exercise of pacing the perimeter of the room, partly to keep himself from stagnation, partly in the hope to transmute his anger and frustration into something constructive.

He might have paced more expansively if he wished, since Crowley had removed the seals on the bedroom door after their last talk. The exit, however, was still barred, and the windows were of no use as far as escape was concerned. Aziraphale had investigated it earlier and found the same anti-angel signs, although drawn much more knowledgeably, on the outer side of the building’s walls as well. If anyone not of the diabolical tribe attempted to take flight from an open window, it’d mean nothing but a quick and hopeless plummeting downwards.

Plummeting aside, Aziraphale, though he wouldn’t admit it even under torture, wasn’t entirely honest when he claimed he wanted to be outside. He didn’t. When he wondered why he had ventured to go out in the first place when bad signs started to show, he found himself in agreement with most of the points Crowley made. He had no need to go out and pretend saving anyone, since it had been written before who was to be saved, and in what numbers, and trying to alter the written word, and the hallowed word at that, was close enough to being sacrilegious.

It was even closer to having a personal opinion; and where there was personal opinion, there was a germ of free will and disobedience, and that was definitely unbefitting an angel. It was a dilemma.

As the quiet in his new forcible shelter began to exert a somewhat calming influence on him, his thoughts returned to this issue again and again. Crowley was out most of the time, somewhere down there amidst smoke, soot and debris, but since he belonged to the currently ruling party, Aziraphale figured he had to be relatively safe. His being out didn’t mean, however, that the demon wasn’t trying to enforce the power of the seals by appealing to Aziraphale’s reason. Or indignation. Or sense of humour, after all, as Aziraphale had to admit when he reread the note Crowley had left on the bedroom door.

“Angel asylum guide-book and regulations”, it began and went very much in the same manner, which Aziraphale found mocking and disrespectful at first thought and cruelly reasonable at second.

“A special secret institution to serve as ethereal beings sanctuary. Open all the year round, 24/7 in apocalyptical seasons. Location: a very decent place if you look around. Always has vacant rooms, at least one; boarding provided on request/invitation. Rent: free of charge upon identification.  
Facilities: a personal agent to keep in touch with the outside world; additional services of the agent available on request.  
Walks: forbidden until weather changes.  
Leisure activities, hard drinks and such: check availability with your agent. Will be eagerly provided if the agent isn’t engaged elsewhere.  
Ethereal beings’ duty to the host: don’t do anything stupid.”

Aziraphale humphed at the note, reached out to grab and crumple the insulting paper in his fist, then changed his mind and let it be.

***

While nobody was looking it was safe to be frank with himself. That led him to acknowledge that he had been meddling in the apocalyptic things before his turn, not out of the wish to help and save but because staying out of it sounded too sensible. He had gone against his own rationale and began to interfere where he could, protecting a scared bunch here and there and knowing all the time that it was useless and they were doomed anyway.

He had done it because he was told not to. Now, that was something the demon would have sneered at, had he only been present.

Trying to stay logical even if it hurt, Aziraphale elaborated on the sudden idea. Looking at things from this angle, it appeared that Crowley, too, was trying to mimic independence of the Plan, at least in such lesser details as occasionally saving an angel or two. The discovery that their motivation had been essentially the same made Aziraphale feel a bit better as it mended the breach he suspected to have formed in their relationship. Besides that, it mended very little.

Free will had always been a dangerous toy, even in small things. It usually meant that in order for one to have it, somebody else had to renounce it. And despite his angelic nature, Aziraphale didn’t feel like being that other one. After all, the Agreement he and Crowley had enjoyed for so long was based on the rule of strictest parity.

Which would mean, if he dared bring his chain of arguments to a logical end, that he would have to do something stupid despite the warning, namely, to try to run away.

***

Crowley had entered, or rather crept in, so quietly that the angel was caught by surprise when he found the flat’s owner seated on the couch. This piece of furniture used to be white, but after Crowley, and, most likely, Hastur too, had sat on it in their working garments there was little left of its original clean colour.

Aziraphale edged his way into the room with precaution that wasn’t really necessary. Crowley’s mind seemed to be occupied only with a cheap-looking bottle from which he was taking large gulps without even bothering to upgrade the stuff to something respectable.

“How’s life?” started Aziraphale, despising himself for such a trite way to open a conversation.

“Uh?’

“Outside.”

“Nasty.” Crowley drank some more. “It’s been raining. And hailing. And casting of untimely figs.”

Aziraphale walked up to the window and peeled off a side of the shade to look out through the crack.

“Don’t do that,” Crowley warned him without turning. “They might notice you and would want to improve their hunting score.” He contemplated the bottle and then added, as an afterthought: “Angels are precious, you know.”

Aziraphale let the alarming ambiguity of the remark stay uncommented. He left the window though, and moved to stand behind the couch. From this vantage point, Crowley’s shoulders looked particularly sagging. He thought about the possible reason for that, assumed that he’d be better off not knowing, and concluded that action might be, for once, more appropriate than speculation.

Crowley muttered something unintelligible, closed his eyes and leaned back into his touch as the angel’s hands continued to rub the tired muscles of his shoulders.

“It’s not at all easy swaggering around with a sword. How did you manage to do that, back in Eden?”

“Takes a bit of practice,” intimated Aziraphale sagaciously.

“Ah!” He took his time melting under the angel’s touch until a sudden revelation made him sit up with a start. “So, you HAVE been practicing? Yes, yes, you must have been, because you were damn good in that church, you were damn super…”

“Mind your language, dear.” Aziraphale couldn’t help but chuckle. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to be ready… just in case.”

“Unthinkable,” Crowley murmured sinking back in the couch. “And I always wondered what exactly you do in that backroom in your shop. Now I know.”

He fell silent, seemingly drifting off into warmth and relaxation, making Aziraphale almost hate himself for hypocrisy. Still, he had to go on if he wanted to see his plan fulfilled.

“I’ve been thinking,” Crowley spoke up again suddenly, “that you’d never make a fine saint, Aziraphale.”

“Why so?”

“You wouldn’t be renowned for your patience. It doesn’t look so, but you lack restraint. Always rushing head first into things. But you’re always around…well, most of the time.”

“Seems like we’re both sinners, doesn’t it?”

Crowley opened his eyes again, looking up at the angel’s face hovering over his upside down. “No. No. You can’t have sinned. I wouldn’t let you.”

“Now that’s highly assertive, my friend.”

Outside, a bolt of thunder rumbled, and the skies burst in a blaze.

“It’s the sixth bowl already?” said Aziraphale, already knowing the answer.

“You’ve been counting, right? Impatient, I tell you. You probably always look at the end of each new book first instead of reading from page one onwards, like good readers should. That won’t do. There should always be a surprise…a surprise ending…”

Aziraphale listened to the demon’s sleepy ramble, all the while trying to make head or tail of his own emotional clash. Besides moral issues, there was still a very materialistic question of passing the barrier of pentagrams on the way out of the apartment. He wasn’t certain he’d found a good solution.

Not that he had too many ideas, to start with. Actually, the one possibility occurred to him merely moments ago, and he had been staring at Crowley’s hands in fascination ever since. Now, with the demon asleep, he ventured to go round the couch, knelt in front of it and very gently, with his breath caught in an awkward lump in his throat, pulled at one of the gloves.

It took him several painful minutes, but finally the diabolical glove was his, and Crowley’s naked hand fell back languidly on his knee. Aziraphale stared at the leather item of clothing in deep, and quite justified, doubt: there was no way the glove would fit his plumper palm enough to protect it fully.

He squeezed his fingers inside, and pulled as much of leather cover as he could over the back of his hand, and then could only hope that it would do when he would be rubbing off the marker signs from the door.

***

By the time he was done the skin on his hand was itching and burning, the hellish fashion abusive and acid to his angelic essence. He peeled the glove off once he was across the threshold, and threw the eroded leather away. He avoided looking at his hand but knew nonetheless that the skin was red and blistered. The pain was strong enough to make him gasp for air.

And there was still the stairs; long, endless flights of stairs that led down into the dark below and the ash-strewn street outside. Nursing his injured hand, Aziraphale began his descent.  
Two storeys lower he was perfectly breathless, humiliatingly close to whining aloud at the searing pain in his hand, and with his heartbeat pulsing so thunderously in his temples that he would be unable to hear the trumpet call of his brothers-in-arms, to say nothing of quick, soft steps coming in from behind. He didn’t even notice when a heavy book was raised above his head, only to crash with a considerable but carefully measured force on his unaware nape.

Crowley sat down on the step near the angel’s once again limp body.

“You should have taken both gloves.” He looked at Aziraphale’s face, pale and so calm in his forced sleep, and brushed away a stray lock of blond hair. “How were you going to open the door to the street, stupid?”

The way up, much like the way down moments ago for the angel, looked dark and endless. Crowley sighed and cringed at the prospect of the troubled climb. It looked like hauling Aziraphale’s lifeless body was becoming his routine exercise.

***

Aziraphale came round to the accompaniment of a throbbing headache, like he did last time, and a stunning realisation that he was wearing handcuffs, which made this time different. He didn’t remember much of what had happened; he had to be planning an escape, that was sure enough because that’s what he would be doing now if his head didn’t hurt so. He could even remember that he carried out his plan, or at least tried to, until he was swallowed by darkness somewhere on the stairs that led down into an abyss.

He wouldn’t have a second chance; that much was also certain. He closed his eyes hoping it would make the headache go away, and attempted to sum up whatever meager means of attaining freedom he might still have. He could think of none, except, perhaps, an emergency discorporation, which he could induce, given that he had enough of persistence, by starving himself to death, for example…

He opened his eyes with a start. The abyss that was at the end of the stairs he had almost descended gaped at him and revealed its full meaning. If he had ever been close to putting his foot on the road that would end in the Fall, it was now.

Suddenly he was thankful there were handcuffs on his wrists.

***

Crowley was looking askance at him, obviously fidgeting about how to start the conversation. He had tried looking calm, and looking infuriated, and looking sorry, and ended up expressing a curious mixture of all those emotions.

“If you think I’m happy that my words about you lacking restraint have proven true, I must tell you that I’m not. Not happy, not in the least.” He paused, waiting for Aziraphale to become indignant and start to demand immediate freedom, but nothing of the kind followed. “You don’t want me to take them off?”

“No.”

Crowley coughed, which was a rather poor attempt to hide his interest.

“May I ask why?”

“I thought you know that already.” Aziraphale, just like the demon, was avoiding any direct looking in the eye of confessional honesty until it was absolutely inevitable.

“Well, I don’t. Funny, eh? Enlighten me?”

Aziraphale sighed.

“I’ve been a complete duffer. I was too preoccupied with proving myself able to do something, not being a coward, so much that I forgot myself. Forgot my nature. It would have been awfully awkward if the Armageddon began and I was deemed ineligible of my rightful rank because of having been overenthusiastic ahead of time. It was you who didn’t let me Fall. Thank you, Crowley. Now I understand why you did that foul trick in the church.”

“No, I simply didn’t want you killed by Hastur, that’s all.” Crowley laughed, not at all believing that he’d fool anybody with his pretence of nonchalance. “But I like your version too.”

Aziraphale listened to his heartbeat resound in his head, which, surprisingly, didn’t emphasise the headache like it did only moments ago. In fact, the headache was gone.

“Care to release me now? Those handcuffs are somewhat uncomfortable.”

With a pensive look on his face Crowley pressed his hand to the lock, and the manacles clicked open.

“They looked good on you, to be frank.”

“Ah, no, not ever again,” Aziraphale laughed quietly, rubbing his bruised wrists.

“We could switch places if you wish.”

Crowley’s lips were hot and dry as parchment, and he still smelled of pungent smoke and gore. Not that Aziraphale paid much attention to it, or minded it at all.

***

He stood behind the door, careful not to lean on it like the last time. Falling into the room where an unwelcome and troublesome guest was temporarily lodged would do little good to him and his host. Aziraphale promptly remembered how the host laughed to Hastur’s jokes and wondered, for the briefest of moments, if the guest was welcome after all. No, it couldn’t be; he might have had doubts before, but not now. Crowley had to be very displeased with this sudden appearance.

The increasing volume of growls and sneers on the other side of the door indicated as much. Aziraphale felt a momentary pang of guilt at trying to eavesdrop, but it was short-lived. He had a right to feel involved since the violent Duke of Hell was as much of danger to him as he was to Crowley, and so it was a question of mere survival. Or maybe, not only that.

“You owe me.” Hastur was beyond polite conversation, and his voice was quickly escalating to a roar. “You did away with Ligur and nearly had me trapped, I think you owe me an apology.”

“Will ‘I’m sorry’ do?” Crowley, on the contrary, was still trying to sound light-hearted. “Not that I really am, but we could pretend…”

“I’ll have none of your lies, snake. You’ve built your career on lies.”

“Wait, there wasn’t a single untruth in what I said back in Eden…”

“Stop chattering. Now it’s a rather pleasant disposition,” Hastur’s voice changed from roaring into a lustful growl, “to have you under my command. I find it very promising.”

“Of what?” Crowley asked, and Aziraphale wished that he didn’t.

“Oh snake, I think you’ll be good and let me choose.”

This time Aziraphale did tumble forth again, but not unintentionally. As his feet carried him into the room his mind was urgently searching for a clever way to continue his surprise attack so that the Duke remained off guard for enough time for Crowley to do something, because his, Aziraphale’s, tactical resources were depleted.

It appeared he needn’t have puzzled so much over what to do next. Hastur was indeed surprised. Hastur gaped. Hastur was astonished beyond coherence for as much as several moments.

Then he turned to Crowley.

“I should have known it! You’ll be at the top of the blackest of all Black Lists again, snake, I’ll see to…”

And then the ceiling collapsed and buried them under broken bricks, smoldering ash and fire-hot rocks as the seventh bowl of wrath was poured, for the harvest of the earth was reaped and it was time to say “It is done.” [5]

***

Notes:

[5] Rev 16:17

  
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://library.good-omens.net/viewstory.php?sid=259>  



	3. Stockholm Syndrome by Das Tier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, Apocalypse isn’t cancelled, and everybody must play his role - or find a way out of it.

  
[Stockholm Syndrome](viewstory.php?sid=259) by [Das Tier](viewuser.php?uid=60)  


  
Summary: This time, Apocalypse isn’t cancelled, and everybody must play his role - or find a way out of it.  
Categories: [Slash Fanfic](browse.php?type=categories&catid=3) Characters:  Aziraphale  
Genres:  Action/Adventure  
Warnings:  Violence (mild)  
Challenges:  
Series: None  
Chapters:  3 Completed: Yes   
Word count: 8585 Read: 820  
Published: 28 Jul 2006 Updated: 28 Jul 2006 

Ransom and ineffability by Das Tier

Ransom

 

And so it came to be as it had been written. Fallen was the great city that stood on many hidden waters. It was split in three, and it was thrown down, and all its lost rivers were revealed in fire after it had become a habitation of demons. The judgement was strong, and in an hour it was made desolate.

But it must be said again that there is no equality between divine and human measures of time, so terming it ‘an hour’ was highly subjective.

He was standing with his face turned to the wall of a cathedral. He wasn’t sure which of the surviving ones it was, but he had caught a glimpse of the domes and knew it had to be some major place. It would be only logical, since the spectacle to come needed grandeur and a big audience.

To eliminate all emergencies, they decided to stick to the old scenario. There was an angel coming down out of heaven, and he had a key of the abyss and a big chain. The chain was now securely fixed to keep his hands behind. He listened to the sentence being read, and the crowd cheering to the judgement being given to him, the offender. He wondered with detached interest if they would yet invent some ingenious detail to brisk up the show.

They did.

They pulled at his wings to make them spread out into full span, and then nailed them to the cathedral’s wall with two swords. Not flaming ones, thankfully.

With that they were done with improvisation and went back to following the verdict. While the last of it was being read, he looked on either side, careful to turn slowly as every little movement only made his wings more taut and straining against the pinning swords.

Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen in the crowd. That was good. He pressed his cheek to the crude stone of the wall, felt its cold rough touch, and smiled.

He promised himself not to cry out once they began, but then concluded it would be pointless bravado. Besides, he doubted he’d muster enough willpower to keep silent. Hastur couldn’t, and he used to be a Duke of Hell. And yet he had howled, and cursed, and begged for them to stop.

Well, he would do without begging, at least; that much he could manage.

The verdict was read, and then there was silence, which lasted not half an hour but merely a moment; and then a heavenly blade came down like a mighty thunder and cut off one of his wings.

He screamed, and found it good that he hadn’t foolishly tried to stop himself from doing so. After all, it was his only way to go through the pain.

The thunder blade cut through the air again and severed his other wing. He was still yelling and couldn’t know if the crowd went up in cheers or was silent.

With nothing to support him pinned to the wall anymore, he fell to his knees, weakly struggling for balance, and felt how the very essence of him was pouring out from the wounds on his back onto the stones that used to be fiery but now were ash.

 

Ineffability

 

It was a bright and shiny day on the earth that was as good as new; or it could be brand new, because there was no way of telling [all scars dissolved in a week’s time; smooth results guaranteed by ‘I make all things new’™].

Aziraphale looked up at the clear sky, and then down, at the waters of a river clear as crystal. He walked freely in the light through the glorious Paradise that shone and frolicked and sang in the many voices of named and not yet named living things. The air itself was clear and tingling with sounds of joy.

“Pssss, watch your step.”

Aziraphale froze in his stride and peered down into the verdant grass.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

He immediately saw the redundancy of his first question as the voice that spoke to him clearly belonged to a snake. It was a large specimen with scales forming a fancy pattern in various shades of gold. It crawled carefully out of Aziraphale’s way and coiled comfortably on a rock made warm in the sun.

“We’ll have time yet to make proper introductions. As to the ‘why’, I suppose it’s all part of the big Plan.” The snake watched the angel with acute curiosity in its golden unblinking eye. “Let’s just wait and see; it might turn into something interesting, eh?”

 

FIN

 

_____

A/N 1. It's imaginable that Hastur could be the Second Beast from Rev. 13:11, London could equal Babylon [sorry, Londoners], and Aziraphale might be the Third Angel from Rev 14:9 gone astray. But in fact they are not because John’s Book doesn’t say so, and you can take artistic license only this far.

A/N 2: the whole plot idea was shamelessly borrowed from Anne Frank’s Diary.

  
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

This story archived at <http://library.good-omens.net/viewstory.php?sid=259>  



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